7 Reasons You Should Never Trust Yourself

Are you someone who places a ton of confidence in yourself and your ability to always make wise decisions? If so, here are 7 reasons to discontinue that approach:

1) You have too many blind spots.

You only think you see everything in your life with perfect clarity. But you don’t, and neither do I. We have blind spots. These are areas of our life where our perception hasn’t caught up to the reality of the situation.

We tell ourselves that all is well, but deep down, we probably sense that some things are spiritually out of whack. These issues have a way of bringing additional drama into our life, whether we recognize the source of the drama or not.

If only we could see these blind spots the way God sees them. This is the first reason to never trust yourself. While you probably see a few things, you certainly don’t see everything. And it is in those areas of impaired vision where you can really mess your life up in a big way.

2) Your follow through doesn’t always match your intentions.

If you always did the good you want to do, then you could trust yourself. But you don’t. Your follow through often lags behind your intentions. And for that reason, you should never trust yourself.

You can actually get plenty of good things accomplished without ever trusting yourself. As long as you rely upon the One who has all power and wisdom, your life will get “in the flow” of that higher connection which only the Holy Spirit can arrange.

3) You naturally withdraw into your own little world.

You look at quite a few things differently than others. That’s because you live in your own little world. All of us tend to assume that others see things in the same way we see them, but they don’t.

Some of our perceptions exist only in our mind. Those ideas are just a figment of our imagination. And our natural tendency is to place a lot of confidence in the way we perceive things in our own little world. That can get a person into a lot of trouble, especially when his perceptions are only based in “his reality” and not God’s reality.

After all, God’s reality is true and eternal. Our own perceptions, on the other hand, are at times way off base. So don’t trust yourself, unless of course you think your little world can produce a better outcome than God’s plan for your life.

I seem to remember a couple of people in a garden who once “went off the rails” with that kind of thinking.

4) You have areas of weakness.

So you feel you have it all together, do you? That kind of thinking will get you into trouble. We all have weaknesses. And yet we continue to mistakenly trust ourselves even in those areas where we are prone to experience defeat.

There is One who always wins the victory, and the only way we will experience that result in our weaknesses is by turning to Him for strength and forgiveness.

You can trust yourself and be defeated by your weaknesses, or you can trust Christ and experience victory in His strength.

5) You will have more contentment by not trusting yourself.

Why do we assume it is up to us to produce our own contentment? We race around and chase things we perceive to be the ultimate source of contentment. And in so doing, we place confidence in our own ability to provide what only our Creator can provide for us.

This self-deception is rooted in our erroneous ideas about God. We mistakenly assume we can “get on good terms” with God by our sincerity or deeds. And in the process, we prove that we believe more in our paltry efforts than in the work Jesus accomplished on the cross.

6) You need a community of others to help keep yourself in check.

Living an isolated life flows from a desire for privacy and self-reliance. But it lacks the very thing we need if we are going to grow as individuals. We need feedback. We need support. And we don’t get those things by isolating ourselves in our own little cocoon.

God instituted the family, and He instituted the church. Homeless people can survive, but life on the street is tough. Likewise, it is incredibly difficult to maintain a healthy spiritual life apart from a loving congregation of believers.

Have you discovered one yet? If not, keep looking. There are plenty of them out there.

7) You are not wise enough to come to Jesus on your own.

This is the biggest reason you should never trust yourself, and so I saved this one for last. And it really is the clincher.

If you could truly trust yourself as the ultimate beacon of light, then why in the world are you unable to come to Jesus apart from the work of the Holy Spirit in your life? Why don’t you just naturally run into the Lord’s arms of grace?

I will tell you why. It’s because sin has disconnected our “spiritual wiring” and this causes all sorts of malfunctions within us. As wonderful as we are in God’s design, we nevertheless have not been created with a warranty. We only get the warranty by coming to Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins. This requires the grace of God and the “conversion power” of the Holy Spirit.

So trust Christ. And ask the Holy Spirit to enlighten your path through God’s Word. Without Scripture, there is not one of us who would ever be “wise for salvation.” (2 Tim. 3:15)

Will you trust Jesus in life and in death, or do you trust yourself way too much to hand over the reigns of control to the King of Kings? Remember, He is the One who put you and I on this planet in the first place. And He did it without an ounce of help on our part. Go figure.